Lee High School to keep school colors, mascot

Lee High School seniors Selah Evans (from left), Savannah Vathy and Kendall Kloza answer questions from the media after the North East Independent School District Board voted to change the name of Lee High School to Legacy of Educational Excellence High School.

Click through the slideshow to view more reactions to the L.E.E. High School name change.

Lee High School seniors Selah Evans (from left), Savannah Vathy and Kendall Kloza answer questions from the media after the North East Independent School District Board voted to change the name of Lee High ... more

Photo: Edward A. Ornelas /San Antonio Express-News

Photo: Edward A. Ornelas /San Antonio Express-News

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Lee High School seniors Selah Evans (from left), Savannah Vathy and Kendall Kloza answer questions from the media after the North East Independent School District Board voted to change the name of Lee High School to Legacy of Educational Excellence High School.

Click through the slideshow to view more reactions to the L.E.E. High School name change.

Lee High School seniors Selah Evans (from left), Savannah Vathy and Kendall Kloza answer questions from the media after the North East Independent School District Board voted to change the name of Lee High ... more

Photo: Edward A. Ornelas /San Antonio Express-News

Lee High School to keep school colors, mascot

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After months of consternation among students and alumni about the decision to change the name of Robert E. Lee High School, administrators at North East Independent School District said Monday night the school’s mascot will still be called the Volunteers and its colors will remain red and gray.

In October, district trustees voted 5-2 to name the school Legacy of Educational Excellence, or LEE High School, saying arguments over the school’s name, embedded in a renewed national debate over memorializing the Confederacy, had become too large a distraction from its educational mission.

At Monday’s board meeting, after administrators had inventoried everything from uniforms to gymnasium floors to team uniforms, Superintendent Brian Gottardy said the cost of the name change — including jettisoning things directly associated with the Confederacy and with Lee, its most successful general — will total an estimated $299,098, including a $25,000 contingency fund.

It would have exceeded $1.3 million without the decision to keep the mascot and colors, he said.

“We are keeping the Volunteers because we found literally hundreds — I hope that’s right, don’t you think, staff? — at least several dozens of examples, if not hundreds of examples of Vols, Volunteers,” Gottardy told the board. “If we were to change that particular mascot completely, then our cost would go up exponentially.”

The use of “Lee” will be phased out over time. The school’s logo, which portrays a caricatured Confederate soldier dubbed “Grumpy Gus” and 13 stars, will have to go. So will the names of the school’s spirit teams, the Rebel Rousers and Dixie Drillers. A new school song will be developed.

Cost estimates did not include the purchases over the years of branded merchandise by students, staff, parents and members of clubs and other extracurricular activities. The district will keep various honors, awards and trophies the school has accumulated since it opened in 1958.

It also plans to open a museum on campus, at a cost of $15,000, that would “honor Robert E. Lee High School” and be open to the public, Gottardy said. All of the changes are expected to take effect at the start of the 2018-19 school year.

At a presentation to trustees, district officials flipped through slides with detailed cost estimates in four major areas: athletics, facilities, fine arts and JROTC. The newly problematic imagery of the Confederacy appeared on many items: spirit team and equipment trailers, the band team rig, sports bags and target face masks, practice shirts and uniforms.

At $94,235, athletics led the expenses, including more than $27,000 for replacing a pair of branded wrestling mats, more than $8,000 for tennis uniforms and about $2,000 for a track pop-up tent.

Not far behind were alterations to school facilities, which will exceed $85,000. The floors in the main gymnasium must be sanded and repainted with a new logo. Scoreboards at athletic fields will need to be adjusted or replaced.

And the prominent statue of Robert E. Lee in the school’s lobby will be relocated and the floor underneath retiled, for a total of $8,000.

“Thank you for trying to minimize the cost,” said board President Shannon Grona. “That was one of our concerns from the very beginning.”